One thing environmentalists or historians rarely talk about is that mankind’s road to the destruction of cultures and the world began several thousand years ago and not in the Twentieth Century – with the introduction of agriculture.
By Lionel Mok*
Urban folks look down on people from the country, calling them many colourful names all synonymous with stupidity, notwithstanding that the invention of agricultural tools and implements was probably the biggest leap in human technology since the emergence of Homo Erectus, surpassing that of automobiles, airplanes, or nuclear energy.
But, it also led to massive and irreversible deforestation in all the continents of the world, uncontrolled population growth that eventually caused the extinction of not only numerous species of animals and plants, but also cultures and languages.
Deforestation inevitably destroyed the environment and the means by which many species and tribes subsisted for millions of years, and the process began thousands of years ago, and is continuing right now, as we live and breath.
Industrialisation and development of technologies actually made possible better utilisation of land and crop growth, reversing the trend of attrition of the earth and its resources, both human and natural.
But instead of using our consciousness wisely by really understanding the issue and devising counter measures for the continuing survival of the human species, people jump on the carbon bandwagon and that of other new fangled ideas which serve nothing except to stifle the improvement of livelihood of people living in poorer countries and salve the conscience of people in rich ones…
Addendum: Lionel Mok’s comments were spurred by such as “Genocide and Indigenous Rights: The Inuit People of Canada”, by John Bart Gerald of Global Research, (January 20, 2014); and a report following a visit to Inuit territory in early October, 2013, by the UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous rights who found the Aboriginal peoples “in crisis.”
“The causative problem remains: successive Canadian governments serve the interests of resource extraction corporations rather than the people of the land,” report extract.
Further note: In a territory where the suicide rate of Inuit is thirteen times the national average, 45 or more people committed suicide in 2013. Young men commit suicide at 40 times the rate of those in southern Canada. This happens when a culture is being destroyed; an ongoing genocide warning!
* Lionel Mok, Hong Kong resident, is researching and writing a comprehensive work with the working title of: History Without Borders.
